


Dirty Dancing

by allucinora



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, clint and tony are a dangerous duo, clint vs furniture, does it matter that I've never even seen dirty dancing, poor steve is clueless, steve vs dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 16:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allucinora/pseuds/allucinora
Summary: Nobody puts Clint in a corner! Also, Tony is a terrible flirt, Steve is confused, and there are some very unique battle tactics. It's a pretty standard week for the Avengers.





	Dirty Dancing

"Look, this mess is your responsibility." Sam points at Steve, stabbing his chest to emphasis how completely, deadly serious he is. "So fix it, before I have to!"

Steve sighs. "I don't even know where to begin," he says, staring up at Clint, who has somehow trapped himself on Tony's very elaborate, very expensive crystal chandelier. As Sam and Steve watch in mute disbelief, Clint slowly rotates in place, his belt caught on a silver loop of metal. 

"In my defence..." Clint begins, but Sam cuts him off straight away. 

"Please don't try and explain," he says, ignoring Clint's complaints. "Steve was in charge of making sure you idiots didn't kill each other when you all moved in together, and you still ended up on the roof. It's only been one day!"

"Well, I'm not actually on the roof." Clint mutters, looking faintly disappointed. "I'm not Spider-Man." 

Sam just shakes his head and gives Steve a look of immense pity before walking out the door, ranting about superheroes and terminal stupidity under his breath. Steve sorta wishes he could leave too, but the chandelier is starting to wobble a bit. 

"Why is this my fault, again?" Steve asks. "It's not like I told you to do this. How did you even get up there?" He disappears briefly and returns with a ladder. Clint didn't even know they owned a ladder.

"Okay. Tony rocked up, possibly drunk, and he may or may not have bet me twenty dollars that I couldn't do a backflip off the grand piano."

Steve looks at the piano, which is across the hall, in another room, and very far away from the chandelier. He sighs again, and starts climbing the ladder. "That doesn't explain how you got up there."

"I'm getting to that part! So, of course I did the backflip perfectly, and Tony was very impressed. Went on and on about how my acrobatic talent was an asset to the team..."

"Clint."

"Right. Then he started talking about Dirty Dancing."

Steve stops trying to disentangle Clint's belt from the chandelier, and just looks at him. Clint isn't sure he's seen that particular blend of confusion, resignation and disappointment on Steve's face before. "What the hell is Dirty Dancing?"

Clint stares back at him in mock outrage. "Clearly we've failed you, Cap. Dirty Dancing is a romantic masterpiece, and sometimes I forget just how much culture you've missed out on - "

"Clint, I swear to God - "

There's a sharp crack, and the chandelier tilts dangerously to the side. Just before it falls, Steve snaps Clint's belt in half with his bare hands and drags him on the ladder. They both watch in silence as the very expensive chandelier shatters into a million pieces on the floor. 

"It might be the wrong time to mention this," Clint says, "but you just broke my favourite belt."

"Dammit, Clint! I shouldn't be rescuing you from the furniture in the first place!" 

Steve is slowly getting redder. Maybe he thinks that Dirty Dancing is a modern innuendo for something else. That would definitely explain the lack of eye contact as he dumps Clint back on the ground. And the clenched fists. Oh God, is Steve embarrassed? Or jealous? Cap and Iron Man have been getting along a lot better recently...

Before Clint has time to process this, Tony waltzes back into the room, holding a martini and two beers while wearing the Iron Man suit. He grins lazily at Clint and Steve, before spotting the wreckage on the floor. 

"Clint, if you wanted to start wrecking my stuff, why didn't you say so? We could've started with that!" He skirts the crystal shards and gives Clint the two beers with a suggestive wink. Clint gives one to Steve.

Steve doesn't look amused. "Tony, it's ten in the morning. Why are you giving us drinks? And why are you wearing the suit?"

"Technically, I only gave Clint drinks. The first one is payment for the excellent backflip, and the second is an apology. I really didn't mean to manhandle him so much during the Dirty Dancing bit. Next time, I'll be more gentle." Clint stifles a laugh, and Steve somehow turns an even brighter shade of red. 

"As for the suit... I'm not as young as I used to be, Cap. I need something a bit extra to keep up with the kids! Clint's got a lot more stamina than I do, if you know what I mean." Tony wraps his spare arm around Clint's shoulders with a smug expression, and waits for Steve to implode. 

Clint just starts cackling. Steve looks confused and vaguely horrified, and starts backing away as Stark sips his martini innocently. 

"I'll just... leave you to it, then." Steve says uncertainly, putting his drink on the counter before vanishing out the door. Clint collapses on the ground, laughing so hard that he can barely keep his apology beer from spilling. 

"I told you that getting the Iron Man suit to do the Dirty Dancing lift was overkill." Clint finally manages to say in between fits of laughter. "Oh my God, I've never seen Cap so embarrassed before. He totally thought we were doing something kinky. We have to explain that it's from a movie."

Tony stops laughing for long enough to down his martini. "You up for round two?" He lifts Clint off the ground and hands him the empty glass, which Clint promptly throws over his shoulder. 

"Sure! But this time, can we do it outside? I could've got down from the chandelier on my own, but some help would've been nice. Some teammate you were, leaving me behind like that!"

Tony shakes his head dismissively. "I heard Sam and Steve come in, they had it sorted. Plus, I like Sam. I don't want to have his good opinion of me ruined."

"Fine, fine. You're kidding yourself if you think Sam doesn't know you're actually an idiot, though."

"Watch it, or this time I'll drop you!" says Tony, trying to look threatening and failing miserably. Clint makes an exaggerated gesture towards the wreckage of the chandelier, throwing his empty bottle into the mess for good measure. 

"You didn't even manage to catch me properly last time, you asshole! And stop fucking around with Steve!"

Tony just smirks as he walks out the door, and starts rambling about the prototype elbow thrusters he's adding to the suit. Obviously, he has no intention to stop fucking around with Steve. It's an open secret on the team that Stark uses outrageous flirting to mask his embarrassingly genuine crush on Captain America. Honestly, the man checks out Steve's ass every single time he walks past in uniform. Until today, Clint hadn't considered that Steve might feel the same. 

Clint shrugs to himself and follows Tony. At least he'll get some free entertainment. Emotional trainwrecks are always so much funnier when they don't involve him.

A thought occurs to him, and Clint veers off to grab his bow, grinning wickedly. Steve might actually explode when he sees them doing a deadly version of Dirty Dancing. 

"Tony!" he yells, picking up his least lethal arrows. "I've got another bet!"

This is going to be good, Clint thinks gleefully. 

 

* * *

 

It's only two days later that Clint gets to put his plan into motion. 

The Avengers are fighting an army of sentient rats that crawled out of the New York sewers, dripping muck and spewing waves of disgusting slime wherever they go. Clint is pretty sure their eyes are glowing red. It's an average Tuesday, and sometimes Clint wonders how his life got so fucking weird. 

"Yuck, is anyone else getting their feet stuck in this crap?" he moans, trying to run and shoot at the same time. "I knew I should've stayed up on that roof." God, the smell. Clint was taking twenty showers after this. 

"Clint, you jumped off that roof because it was swarmed by murderous rats." Nat points out over the comms. "And Hulk had to catch you, again." She didn't sound particularly happy, but it might have nothing to do with Clint's latest roof-jumping episode. It could be related to the wave of giant rats that were slowly surrounding her on 54th Street. Clint was nothing if not optimistic when it came to Nat's opinion of him.

He tapped his comms again. "Hey, I need to get airborne. Iron Man, want to give me a lift?" He manages to make it sound pretty suggestive; there's no way Stark won't get the hint.

Clint watches Iron Man as he streaks overhead, a blur of red and gold picking off stray rodents with repulsor blasts. "Should we do Dirty Dancing?" Stark replies, obviously enjoying himself.

There's a collective groan from everyone else in the team, except Steve, who just sounds scandalised. 

"Iron Man, Hawkeye, what you do in your own time is your business. But when we're on mission, I expect you to be focused," Steve declares. He even uses his official Captain America voice. Clint would be kinda impressed by his professionalism, if Steve wasn't actually one of the most reckless and self-sacrificing idiots on the team. Besides, Clint's already lining up his jump from the top of a nearby SUV.

"Iron Man, come get me! Nobody puts Baby in a corner!" Clint yells as he vaults in the air. It's not his best battle cry, but it's definitely not his worst. He ignores Steve's increasingly desperate commands for them to stop messing around, and waits for Tony to catch him.

Right on cue, Iron Man sweeps below him and grabs his waist. Tony had the genius idea of adding specialised elbow thrusters to the suit after their disastrous first attempt, and after that they practised until it was (relatively) perfect. 

Clint soars through the air, picking off rat after rat. It's glorious, and effective, and completely unnecessary. 

It also makes front-page news the next day. Clint has never been so proud.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fic I've written for the Avengers, and it feels horribly OOC but this is some top quality stress relief. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
